Religious Education

The Minister for Education has reversed a Circular Letter issued last February that permitted students to opt out of religion in ETB (State) schools and choose another subject. The reversal was due to the lobbying of the Catholic Church, Religion Teachers, The Association of Trustees of Catholic schools, The ETBI ...

ETB schools are trying to evade the Department of Education directive to give students an alternative subject to religion, by claiming that the directive applies only to Religious Instruction and not to the State course in Religious Education. But what is referred to in Ireland as Religious Education is known ...

Atheist Ireland, the Evangelical Alliance of Ireland, and the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community of Ireland, will be meeting the Department of Education again in September, to discuss the recent directive regarding religion in ETB schools. We would like to be able to bring as much information to that meeting as possible, about what ...

Atheist Ireland recently used the Freedom of Information Act to ask some questions of the Professional Development Service for Teachers (PDST), which is a State-funded body that provides in-service training for teachers, about its relationship with the Catholic Church when providing such training for religion teachers. The PDST gave us ...

While Pope Francis was speaking in Croke Park in Dublin, Jane Donnelly of Atheist Ireland was making the case for a secular education system free from Catholic Church influence. Jane was speaking at a public meeting convened by People Before Profit, about Separation of Church and State. Here is the ...

In a recent tweet the Minister for Health, Simon Harris has said that “Religion plays an important role for many on an individual basis - but it will not determine health and social policy in our country any more. Please get that.” Please just make it stop! Increasing access to ...

The Labour Party has recently proposed that we should have a new Citizens' Assembly to tackle the Constitutional issues surrounding our education system. They have not identified the particular Articles in the Constitution that we would need to look at. Atheist Ireland has consistently argued that the Constitution has failed to protect ...

There is a lot of confusion among parents and students in relation to the different types of religious education and religious instruction classes in Irish school at primary and second level. Here is a quick guide which we hope will give a better understanding of the basic principles in relation ...

In an article in the Irish Independent it is stated that teachers are threatening to pull the plug on a new Directive from the Department of Education, which permits students to opt out of religion and pick another subject. It is very disappointing to see the TUI willing to undermine ...

In an article in the Irish Times on the 11th March Dr. Sandra Cullen, Director of the Mater Dei's Irish Centre for Religious Education at DCU’s Institute of Education, suggests that “It’s time to talk about Religious Education.” Atheist Ireland has written to the Mater Dei/DCU seeking a meeting to ...

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